What do Labour policies mean for house building?

Labour will raise the headline rate of corporation tax to 21% from 2018-2019, 24% from 2019-20 and 26% from 2020-21.

For small businesses the lower small profits rate of corporation tax will be reintroduced. The Small Profits (below £300,000) rate will be 20% from 2018-19 and 21% from 2020-21.

Labour will introduce a National Transformation Fund that will invest £250 billion over ten years in upgrading the economy.

What does Labour say Brexit will mean for business?

Labour says, “Throughout the Brexit process we will make sure that all EU-derived laws that are of benefit – including workplace laws ... – are fully protected without qualifications, limitations or sunset clauses.”

Workforce – skills and training

Labour would introduce free, lifelong education in Further Education (FE) colleges, enabling everyone to upskill or retrain at any point in life.

The apprenticeship levy will be maintained and new measures will be introduced to ensure high quality. Employers will be given more flexibility in how the levy is deployed, including allowing the levy to be used for pre-apprenticeship programmes.

Workforce – foreign workers

A Labour government will immediately guarantee existing rights for all EU nationals living in Britain.

How will Labour meet national housing needs?

Labour will invest to build over a million new homes.

Labour will prioritise brownfield sites and protect the green belt. It says it will start work on a new generation of New Towns “to build the homes we need and avoid urban sprawl.”

Labour also commits to resource and bolster planning authorities with fuller powers. For instance, “We will update compulsory purchase powers to make them more effective as a tool to drive regeneration and unlock planned development.”

What does Labour say about social housing?

Labour says, “By the end of the next Parliament we will be building at least 100,000 council and housing association homes a year for genuinely affordable rent or sale. We will build thousands more low-cost homes reserved for first-time buyers.”

The party says, “We will make the building of new homes, including council homes, a priority through our National Transformation Fund, as part of a joined-up industrial and skills strategy that ensures a vibrant construction sector with a skilled workforce and rights at work.”

Labour commits on a like-for-like basis to require council to replace affordable homes sold under right-to-buy schemes.